Fullers Triple Crown Completed

Fullers Triple Crown Completed, it has taken 5 months to run, 1 year to train and 40 years to build the motivation and discipline. "Never Again" is the reply, so don't even ask.

I ran, waded and crawled, 8.8 miles off road around the Aldershot army testing ground in the December heat!

"Grim Challenge"

I ran the Reading Half Marathon, 13.1 miles in 2hr 18mins

"Reading Half Marathon"

I ran 26.2 miles at the in 5hrs 26mins Virgin London Marathon 

All in the aid of fighting lung cancer in the loving memory of my late Mum Doreen for The Roy castle Lung Cancer Foundation, we have raised over £4000, (£4967 including gift aid), an amazing achievement, thank you to all my friends for their support, especially Richard Manning for his great fund raising and backing and Kevin Keogh for his patience with my moodiness in training as a friend and his support on the long runs on a Sunday. The just giving page is at

http://www.justgiving.com/FullersTripleCrown

Donations are still possible for 3 months after the event, for those that thought i might not do it, ive done it, so get your wallets and purses out!

Want to buy a backpack, laptop backpack or travel holdall see my new range at Roamlite®

Half Marathon Done....

Completed the Reading half marathon with Kevin KEOGH in 2hrs 18mins. What a great day, enjoyed every minute. Blue sky's and a unbelievable crowd certainly helped us along. Richie was our designated driver and photographer for the day, good boy Richie xx. As chief fund raiser he's doing a great job, over £4000 including gift aid so far.

Backpacks For Running

Christmas and New Year

Well it was an amazing Christmas with my sister and family, quiet cosy and really pleasant. Training and my health was always on my mind throughout whilst eating everything in sight. New years resoltutions arent really a big thing for me as I am always changing and challenging myself and my discipline. I would like to lose some weight though and I know this is just a case of not eating so much, i am a glutton at the table and there no denying it, put it in front of me and i will eat every last crumb. The craving for something sweet is always there after eating so i must eat a tangerine or something rather than a ferrero rocher!

I will be off to Thailand soon for a holiday and to basically take Nam home, she will be going to help her sister with her new born, then going back to studying hairdressing in time to come back here and hopefully be able to work and get a bit more settled. I will miss her hugely and i am already secretly pretty sad about it as she makes me smile every day. I will be putting in the mileage running which will take my mind off of it.

I would like to apologise here to Kylie (and also to Kevin for being pissed about too) who seems to have got the bad end of a few decisions at the poker lately, i was going to phone her but i think she is right in a lot of ways and really, no matter how much i can or cant explain, it "seems" pretty clear from her end that we let her go with a hidden agenda. A sequence of decisions whilst the club being very quiet in hindsight were a bit "hasty", and whilst having two less staff and Stuart deciding that it was so quiet that he should take the last 4 or 5 weeks holiday owing to him left us crawling back to Kevin asking at the last minute if he could work, and Kylie not getting the chance to fill in where she should of been asked to. Sorry Kylie. If you read this, I/we had no intention pissing any one around, it just turned out like that. I wish you a Happy New Year and great luck in your new job.

I have tried to arrange my running this week around the festivities and not use them as an excuse. I changed my weekend run to Saturday last week instead of Sunday and did a gym treadmill run during the week to get the "sprints" in, i did this in favour of sprinting in the dark in the evenings for fear of 16 stone of clumsyness hitting a tree root or uneven pavement at supersonic speed and damaging the street!

I did a great 8 mile run with Kevin last night, a real nice jog up to and around Harrow in the rain, most of which i dont remember as we were too busy chatting like a couple of old biddys, then a nice bit of chicken and cashew nuts and rice, and a few deserved fosters and some hyper turbos round 19s. Why is running in the rain so relaxing? it really clears the mind. Today im recovering (from the fosters and the run), I started to watch "The Kings Speech" with Nam until I realised she was asleep!

Here is the Harrow run:


Dont forget to donate to fight against lung cancer if you can afford to here Fullers Triple Crown

I am in the process of listing some great new briefcases and faux leather briefcases for 2012 on the website, does anyone still use a briefcase???
Briefcases and Leather Briefcases

Grim, done it and got the Tshirt....literally!!

Poor Natalia, I was like an army sargeant pushing her constantly, she took it well and kept on plugging along, at one point i thought she was gonna tell me to stick it up my ars but she didnt. It was really funny when she did the "Mum, i need a pee" after 5 minutes, a quick shake behind a bush and back she was. Kevin ran off in the 1st 30 seconds as we hung to the left to wave at Nam, despite our agreement to run together.

The photos of Natalia and I on the internet are funny, i am grinning in every photo, sado-masochism i think, as i wasnt enjoying it THAT much!

We completed the run in 1 hr 50 mins, cold, dirty but exhillarated, here is the Garmin details, average heart rate was 144bpm and the max was 170. The total distance was 13.61km.

I pulled one of my quadriceps the week after and then decided to take a week or so off, feels better now. Done a couple of 5 milers this week to get back into it, good for the brain too as i was getting a bit low and lazy.
Next stop, the reading half marathon, please be sure to carry on supporting at:
http://www.justgiving.com/FullersTripleCrown/

Training, THE GRIM CHALLENGE 4th December.

Please follow this blog and keep up with my dilemmas!
We are 16 days to my 1st challenge "The Grim Challenge"
8 miles running, wading and crawling on the army testing ground in Aldershot. Should be fun, i think im about ready after a couple of weeks off with a chest problem. I have just started to split my running up now into different formats, it will hopefully go like this:
Sunday: long run marathon pace
Monday or Tuesday: Easy recovery run
Wednesday or Thursday: Interval running with sprints, jogs and fast walking
Thursday or Friday: Hill running

Given what ive been reading about marathon training, they all suggest these different formats to hit different areas of running health namely, strength, power, stamina, anerobic and aerobic fitness etc (dont quote me on these!)
Please remember to help the fight against lung cancer by donating whatever you can afford here:

Here is my last training session, a few sprints and looking at the heart rate and then it tapering off it seems to hit the spot for the purpose:



And my last Sunday run, up to 13km, there are a few stops, evident from the heart rate as we ran the 1st few miles with the girls who werent quite up to it.



On the whole, i am happy so far and feel i have laid a decent foundation to start some serious mileage after Christmas to aim for the marathon. I still cant honestly imagine running 26 miles, i can imagine most things, being a human, we are built for foresight and to see consequence. I just cant see me running 26 miles, it seems a bit much and a bit optimistic.

Other than running and working at the poker club ive been putting together a new section/category on the website to try and cover the Christmas present dilemmas, what do i buy for £10 that uncle, aunty, friend etc for Christmas?..... Wallets and Purses

8 miles to Watford, hangover cure!!

Played poker Saturday at 19's, (£50 + £50 double chance) came 4th and got money back + beer money! gave out a few fund raising cards at the tables, most of which stayed on the tables and i think the dealers kept thinking they were playing cards waiting for the players to check, raise or fold!

I knew that i was going to run a nice long 8 mile+ run on Sunday morning, and I knew that after mentioning to Nam (my girlfriend) that the poker would finish early and that i was up for "going out", along with the 3 hours after starting the tournament she hadnt yet turned up, i WOULD be going out. 3 hours "getting ready" means that I am obliged to make an effort too to "juggle everything" and get my dancing shoes on.

At 12.30am we went to Watford, parked in the "long term" car park and had a boogie for 3 hours then got a taxi home.

10.30am Sunday morning, after playing "catch up" to get in the dancing zone the night before with bottles of stella for 3 people, and having a "subway" foot long (whilst Nam insisted on McDonalds) I didnt feel the greatest. Dehydrated to the point of thinking my tongue was gonna fall off, i set about standing at the sink drinking as many pints of water as possible whilst waiting for the kettle to boil for my coffee.

8 miles to Watford on Garmin

We set off at 11.30am in a false mood of "lets do this", i told Nam that once we got to the top of Stanmore Hill, she could turn back and comfortably run home and know the way. At the top of Stanmore Hill, she suprised me no end. On we went for the long road to Watford, my motivation to her was that, "its on this road" albeit 5 more miles.

We arrived at Watford after approx 1.5 hours jogging, hit "pret a manger" hard for a joghurt/museli/honey pot, sandwich and a coffee and Nam insited on an apple pie from Maccy d's (all good sugar!)

SUCCESS!!! up to 8 miles on my Sunday run, the hard way.

Youtube video at Coventry GUKPT Poker Tournament, GREAT!!

http://www.justgiving.com/FullersTripleCrown
A bit of promo about the Charity and challenge, its really great that Phil, whos a really nice and always friendly guy did this for me. Some people are just "good" people!



http://www.grosvenorukpokertour.com/en/Prizes/LiveEventBlog/